God's PR Problem: The Role of Religion in Games

Writing about videogames is not generally the stuff of Woodward and Bernstein. Occasionally, a hostile public relations manager will make your life difficult, or you'll lose a scoop to a rival publication. Trying to get a good interview while a game's in development can be challenging, especially if that game isn't in its official PR swing yet. But for the most part, this is the entertainment industry: The consumers want to read about it, the producers want to talk about it, and the rest is just details.

So it was with some surprise that GameSpy encountered a wall of fear and paranoia when they called around, asking developers to talk about religion in gaming.

Religion shouldn't be brought into gaming unless it provides for a more entertaining fictional story. Dante's Inferno seems to be going into the mythology of it but not claiming "Hey, this actually took place, and if you don't become a christian, you will experience similar events in this game when you die", well at least I don't think it is based on the interviews with the devs I've seen.

Games like god of war didn't claim to be true to life stories, and other games shouldn't claim that with religion either. I actually wouldn't mind playing a game based on some of the more dark parts of the bible, it would actually be pretty interesting game.

I have a recommendation to anyone out there who is either skeptical of the Christian faith or currently is an atheist or agnostic. The book 'The Language of God' by Francis S. Collins provided a lot of information on the 'battle' of science and faith. It is written by the head of the human genome project, which in the early 21st century finished the entire body's DNA makeup. He has a phd in chemistry or biology so he knows what he's talking about. Basically what the book talks about is why he went from a devout atheist to a man of faith, and then subsequently to the Christian faith. He highlights why he BELIEVES in the theory of evolution and why it is compatible with the Bible. I highly recommend anyone at least give it a read and I would be happy to discuss it if you pm me.

After +15years playing rpgs i can say : "The church is always evil !! if they are not evil , they are simply incompetent .."

that's how i view religion in gaming ... for the rest i just try to follow the setting the game designer used with the writter of the story ... if they have a clear purpose in the story god and the religion can be whatever i don't really care ..as long as it stay logic ..

Why is it the religious always has to say what "truth" is? Especially when there is not one tiny itsy bitsy little wienne piece of evidence? (sorry the Goat herders handbook does not count) "Bible" Why is it the religious care so much about what other people believe or DON'T believe.

I don't know and YOU don't either. What I do know is that all God(s) that humans have ever known were made by man. Now I am not saying there is not some kind of force or God(s) out there that created everything (IMO it's highly unlikely) but from the facts that we have now, every single last God(s) was conceived by man. So to say that you or any other religious person claims to know what God is thinking, knows, or wants is ridiculous.

Of course, Pastafarians know that the ONE TRUE GOD is the Flying Spaghetti Monster and that all other Gods are FALSE Gods.

I'm a christian that reads his bible every night and that's really not true at all. God literally tells Moses a few times to lead an army to a town and kill everyone in there. You gotta look at the context that they were usually fighting half men, half demons (look up the nephilim) but it's a lie to say God never told people to kill. He told them to not murder (ie premeditated). There's a difference. That's why soldiers aren't going straight to hell. I mean David was literally a war man through and through.

Just actually take the time to study the bible, ok?

On topic though, I would love to see more games with religion in it. But the industry has to mature more to get there. It's just too risky and mature.

@ above

If you would really truly like to give it a shot, look up Chuck Missler. He shows ways that God exists through science. I highly recommend it but you actually have to try and not just blindly believe it's all lies.

@2.2- I agree that belief is the chief instigator of ignorance in the world, and is a major component of religion. However, atheists often believe that things don't exist to the same extent that Christians (for example) believe in their nonsense. I'm not a religious person, but I'm no atheist either. I do sympathize with atheists, but both factions have beliefs that they hold dear. Since belief closes one's mind to any alternatives to a given situation, let's try to believe in as little as we can. We'll stay open minded and get the most out of our lives here on earth.

I should make it clear here, I wasn't referring to the article in this comment but to the rather worryingly named Dreamhunk. I thought I'd clicked reply when I musn't have.

Even though I'm what you might call an agnostic atheist I personally think the 'evil religion' angle is played up a little too much in games these days. I liked the way Bioshock turned this on it's head by attacking a philosophy of no god or leaders. My philosophy is far closer to that of 'No gods or kings' than to any religious philosophy but just from the viewpoint of a gamer who values new and interesting ideas. I'm as sick of the evil/crazy/corrupt religious character as I am of the half naked brainless woman or the shaved ape space marine.

Edit: Darkstorn said, "I do sympathize with atheists, but both factions have beliefs that they hold dear". I think you're misunderstanding what atheism is. Atheism is the lack of belief in God, it's as much of an organised belief system as lack of belief in Santa claus. It is not the belief that there is no God. There are atheists that strongly believe that there is no God but an atheist by definition does not have to hold any belief whatsoever.

Why is that the people that always complain about God(i am referring to the only true god The God of Israel, by the way im not jew so i also believe in his son The Christ, The Messiah).

Why is that the people that always complain about God and religion "that they dont believe in religion because religion is created by men", "that religions were created by the government to control the masses" etc etc... Why they always end up creating their own religion, their own way to believe in god?

I get quite enough of this crap rammed down my throat as it is. After being forced to attend religious services for the greater part of my childhood where I was told if I was not perfection itself i would burn in hell for eternity. I dont want to hear about homophobic, homicidal, genocidal, infanticidal, racist, jealous and generally quite bad gods anymore. Religion has no place at the core of a game. It has no place in my life and i would appreciate it so very much if all the gaming companies can continue to keep the magical sky daddy out of my hobby.

Signed A man who has not denied logic and reason in exchange for comfort and reassurance.

Video games need to mature a lot before before they can tackle the issues of G-d and religion in a meaningful way. To say "keep G-d out of my games!" is a little silly. wither you believe in G-d or not is not the point, religion, G-d, spirituality are all parts of human existence in some form or another. Look at the film industry, there are films about religious people and about atheists. i think interactive media (video games) can do these things to in a meaningful way. it just that grown ups have to take over the industry so that all games aren't marketed to 12 year-olds, who have absolutely no idea what real spirituality/atheism is about.

completely agree. higher maturity levels are required in the video game market if religious stories and it's application is to be taken seriously and not result in aimless ideological bashing. not arguing for or against whatever anyone else believes, i just don't think most people have the fortitude to be mature about different viewpoints on spirituality and religion.

off topic, just got done watching traitor and that's a damn good movie.